Overall Reflections and Educational Implications

My action research took a swift turn away from personal behavior and became increasingly focused on the role of motivation as it pertains to the academic performance of a student. I mistakenly associated problem behaviors in my classroom with an inherent flaw that I should help the student try to overcome. However, through the use of personal interviews with my students, I discovered that the intrinsic desire of any student to succeed could and would eventually lead to success in my class. Those students that relied on an extrinsic reward simply were not successful. This speaks volumes concerning the performance of students and how we as educators can help them strive to demonstrate competency in our classrooms.

Of course, volumes on motivation have already been written. Shortly after my experience with Phase II of my action research, I decided to get caught up with the nature of motivation in schools and the workforce today. Daniel Pink (2011) authors a tremendous book on the role of motivation called Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. In what I will call a "pseudo-literature review," Pink references the most major sources of motivation in the field and synthesizes this wealth of resources to fuel his argument that educators and employers today are still blinded to the hindering effect of extrinsic rewards. I plan on using this new research to move forward with my action research within a new classroom context and with a new guiding question: How can I intrinsically motivate a student who shows a clear disengagement from the content of the class? With this new question, I will be approaching one solitary student, rather than a small group or whole class of students, to see if by altering the core curriculum I can instill a desire and passion for learning while maintaining the standards of said curriculum.

However, there are still plenty of implications the first part of my research carries. Throughout the duration of my time in this student teaching placement, one thing that remained consistent was a high level of personal engagement I was able to maintain with the students. They reported feeling like I was a supportive presence in the classroom and one who could empathize with their class experience. I was able to connect with these students beyond the curriculum. I shared my interests with my students, played popular music in class, and in some instances, played a supportive role for those who were experience a difficult situation (e.g., a loss in the family). I feel that the development of the rapport I had with my students helped in part to motivate them towards success in my class. I observed many students completing their work and using class time wisely without prompting, or after one bout of direct instruction to do so. This is part of the much larger goal of creating a positive learning community. I was able to make my students feel safe and capable of powerful learning in my class by developing strong relationships with as many students as possible.

In retrospect, there is a relationship between behavior and performance that could illuminate the futility of trying to control behavior rather than motivation. Students that displayed problematic behaviors were not always struggling academically. Some of the top-performing students were some of the more distracting students in the class. Behavior, then, was not a consistent indicator of students who were struggling in my class. Nor was academic struggle a strong indicator of problem behavior. In this sense, it is difficult to find any direct link between behavior and academic performance. Certainly, a student who is busy talking to their neighbor rather than focusing on their assignment is actively hindering their own performance, but perhaps their neighbor is just better at multitasking and can efficiently complete assignments while still talking to another person. More pinpointed research could be completed in order to determine if there are any connections at all between problem behaviors and academic performance.

Perhaps my research did not result in a total loss. I recently contacted my cooperating teacher from last semester and he reported that several of the students that failed the course, even after meeting with me individually to discuss a behavior agreement, have been performing much better during the second semester, both academically and behaviorally. It could be that my meetings were effective, but they were too little too late for the first semester of classes. The fact that they are performing much better in the current semester could indicate that they took their prior performance to heart. I think back to my freshman year in college, which was my worst year academically. I was not used to the rigor of collegiate work and my performance was not where I wanted it to be. I soon learned how to succeed and did not have too many problems after that year. Maybe my students just needed time to adapt to a new educational environment.

One thing that was made clear through my research is that positive academic performance is not necessarily a function of positive classroom behavior. It helps to develop strong relationships with your students in order to develop a positive learning community, but as an educator, one still needs to ensure that all students can become engaged with the curriculum content. Intrinsic motivation may be at the heart of engagement for certain students.

Hurdles

As is true for many action research projects carried out during a student teaching placement, my abilities as a teacher to play with the curriculum were somewhat limited. I am thankful that I worked with a cooperating teacher who encouraged a great deal of freedom and autonomy between his classes and my classes. However, I still felt that taking a complete detour from the core content of the class would be doing my students a disservice when they would be united with my cooperating teacher the following semester. Accordingly, as my action plan developed, I made sure to keep the basic curriculum intact. I feel that if given the chance to have completed my research with my own classroom, I would have used the increase in freedom to mold the curriculum to better suit the needs of my action plan. For example, I could have taken an entire day with the class to discuss behavior and perhaps could have made a wider impact in my pursuit of developing a positive learning community.

Moreover, the nature of my action research project necessitated time away from the classroom to conduct group and individual interviews with my students. This is a pivotal aspect of my project. Where is the line drawn as far as how my class time should be used in accordance with my action research? Action research implies a field of study in which data is collected in the moment. I was not simply standing idly by, taking notes as I observed my students. I had to rely heavily on post-class reflection in order to ensure I recorded all of the behavior changes and incidents I encountered. On top of that, I had to make room outside of class in order to conduct my interviews, which would not have been possible without the help of my cooperating teacher. Even if I had my own classroom, I would have had to take instructional time away from my students in order to sit down with specific groups and individuals in order to make progress with my action plan. Some alternatives could have been to talk to these students before or after school, or even during lunch. However, I feel that the expansion of the school day in this manner would have been less effective. Having to call students in for a discussion outside of my regular class hours may produce negative effects. Students may feel that having to come in to my classroom on their own time for an activity they may not be interested in participating in could create a feelings of frustration. The only other alternative I could think of would be to talk with these students during a different class, but that would imply that I am using the time of other teachers for my own benefit. The nature of having a discussion with a student means that the student may miss key content instruction. This seems like a bit of a paradox to take students away from the learning in order to help increase their academic performance. However, I feel that in the long run, these discussions will help set a new tone for performance and behavior in the classroom.

Transformations

Now that I have completed my first action research project, I can spend a moment to reflect upon how I have changed as an educator. Like many new concepts I have been introduced to in the field of learning and teaching, action research did not come naturally to me. Initially, I felt that research of any kind was exclusively reserved for people in laboratories who wore white coats and called in their test subjects to generate conclusions about our world and society. It took some time for me to get my footing with the action research project. After all, I did not consider myself to be a researcher. I never even thought to compare the words "teacher" and "researcher" before setting off on this project. Besides, when would I have the time to update and develop my research? I thought I would be swamped with lessons to plan and instructional activities to carry out.

These trains of thought represent my first error as an action researcher. I have learned that carrying out research while teaching in the classroom actually comes quite naturally. As a teacher-researcher, you are concerned with the ability of students to learn in your class. Because of this, most teachers are also researchers without even knowing it. Think about it: as a teacher, you are actively altering the curriculum, considering student voice, and rearranging the dynamics of your class in order to maximize the potential for growth. Conducting an action research project is simply formalizing the process of something you are already doing. So, why do action research if you are already doing research in the classroom? I have learned that by reflecting upon and sharing your findings with other educators benefits my growth as an educator and forces me to consider all perspectives of learning in my classroom. Recording my research in the form of an organized paper also helps me retain knowledge of my progress, which allows me to accurately and coherently develop my attempts at shifting the learning culture in my classroom. Now that I have reached the formal conclusion of this action research project, I realize that there is no such thing as a conclusion. I will continually cultivate and elaborate upon my learning in this project so long as I remain a teacher. Who knows, at the rate our educational landscape is changing, my project may need a total facelift in ten years. Maybe even five years. Now that I have my thoughts recorded and my learning etched into my digital footprint, I feel that I am assuring developmental success as I continue to grow as an educator.

Considering the specific development of students in my class, I have transformed in the way I approach student learning in my classroom. I understand how easy it is for any instructor of any content area to fall back on the content as a way to approach learning, but this will surely create the perfect solution for failure. Students need to be engaged in the material, and just because you think the material is engaging yourself does not mean your students will think the same way. The challenge of the teacher becomes creating a curriculum that will get students motivated to learn about something, even things they initially felt were boring or, dare I say, stupid. The whole concept of connecting student voice to instruction was something I had always made small attempts at in my classrooms over the past year, but this action research project made it glaringly obvious the need for students to become engaged in a lesson or unit before gaining the ability to demonstrate their own learning. Moving forward, I plan on making very concerted efforts at rendering a genuine engagement within my students, even if I need to work with one scholar at a time to do so. Action research has opened my eyes to depths and intricacies of the teaching profession I had not previously considered. In attempting to learn about my students and their learning experiences, I ended up learning a great deal more about myself. I remain assured moving forward with my professional career that so long as I remain open to reflection, metacognitive exercises such as these, then my pedagogical growth will never cease.